


a lifetime of devotion (i second that emotion)

by Milothatches



Category: 1917 (Movie 2019)
Genre: Fluff, Hanukkah, Judaism, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Religious Imagery & Symbolism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-11
Updated: 2020-12-11
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:08:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28004415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Milothatches/pseuds/Milothatches
Summary: There are some things Will knows that never change, and despite everything, that makes all the difference.
Relationships: Tom Blake/William Schofield
Comments: 7
Kudos: 22
Collections: Walking In A Blakefield Wonderland





	a lifetime of devotion (i second that emotion)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [owlinaminor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/owlinaminor/gifts).
  * Inspired by [making home](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24218611) by [owlinaminor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/owlinaminor/pseuds/owlinaminor). 



> I fucking love the concept of Jewish Will???? I love it so much. There's not enough jewish representation in most fandoms, so I'm absolutely honored to be able to write this fic and have the hanukkah prompt for winter blakefield!! It's such a joy to write. A lot of this is based off of Betsy's Making Home fic, which I'll link via Inspired By! please, please go read it if you haven't. Or if you have. Read it again. It's beautiful, and I love her.

There are some things Will does not like to keep hidden — he is tall and he doesn’t fit in most places, because England is cramped and small and made of stone. He has a sister, and nieces, and he loves them. He is Jewish, and he’s not ashamed of it; there is nothing to be ashamed of, not in the careful way he teaches his nieces how to braid their hair, not in the enunciated prayers and the makeshift fort they make in Eleanor’s livingroom during Sukkot or the way his sister laughs when he ends up getting flour everywhere, because he’s an awful baker and yet the only one who can cook.

But the William Schofield _before_ is not the same William Schofield as _after._ There is no room for gentle hands and laughter in Thiepval, and there are no stories in the Somme. Will is alive, but there’s nothing left. As he sits with his legs pressed to his chest while the rain floods outside his tent, he wishes, not for the first time, that he were smaller.

  
  


Tom sighs.

  
  


Will glances at him, where he’s curled up on one of their thin blankets on the ground, head resting on his pack and frowning worriedly at the rain. He looks - soft.

“It ever rain like this, in March?”

Will blinks. And then, “I don’t know. I wasn’t here.”

“No,” Tom shakes his head, “I mean, back home.”

Will looks away, considers the heavy patter of rain from above them, the sound of it hitting the tarp covering the doorway. He thinks of home, of staring out the windows, of warm cups of tea. Will thinks of the dirt, and the mud, and the bodies.

  
  


“No.”

  
  


Tom hums. “Was it like this on Christmas, then?”

“Yes, but it was different. It was snowing, then,” Will says. He doesn’t know if Tom’s asking about home or three months ago - It’s the same, either way.

“That must’ve been nice.” Tom grins, soft and warm. Will shrugs. It wasn’t any different a day, to him.

“Not really,” he says. “It — It gets cold.”

If Will wasn’t constantly making sure their tent was about to start flooding, he’d slap himself. _Obviously, Schofield. Obviously._

  
  


Tom doesn’t seem to mind. He very quickly goes into a story about getting lost in the middle of a snowstorm, the trees that their neighbours grow for Christmas and annual snowball fights as a kid. Will doesn’t have the heart to correct him, and he never does.

  
  
  


-

  
  
  


The next time the topic is brought up, July is hot and unshakeable, and Will is alone.

It’s been months since Tom was sent to a field hospital, and he still hasn’t come back. Will has seen men die of far less for much longer, and yet still, he hopes. Tom has a way of giving parts of Will back to himself, things he can’t remember forgetting - how to hope. How to love. How to hold something gently.

There are some men who just never come back, who die of delirium and fever; but if Tom is one of these men, he makes no sign of it. Will gets three letters at a time, and each one fills him with warmth.

_What was Christmas at the front like? Did you get anything? Do the cooks still make the beans just as shit as they used to?_

_I don’t know,_ Will writes. _I didn’t get anything. The beans are the same as you’ve left them._ Will doodles the faint picture of one of the trees nearby on the back, and carefully folds the letter into one of the standard-given envelopes. He sends the letter on the 29th, and Tom comes back with it in his breast pocket a week later.

  
  


“What do you mean you don’t know,” Tom mutters, frantically inbetween kissing will with what seems to be everything he has.

“What?” Will says, and he thinks he deserves a little credit, being distracted as he is pressed against the brick wall of an alleyway.

Tom pauses, just breathing, holding Will’s face in his palms like he’s missed it, because he _has,_ because he’s said so, the first thing he said to Will in fact - and Will had tensed up so bad his knees almost locked, and he’s been shaking for half an hour, now, but Tom just - looks at him. Reverential.

“In your letter,” Tom says quietly, eyes darting everywhere. “About last Christmas. You said — you said you didn’t know.”

_Oh,_ Will thinks. He shakes his head, covering one of Tom’s hands with his own, pressing into his touch. “I don’t celebrate it.”

Tom furrows his eyebrows. “How come you never told me?”

Will shrugs, helplessly. A little nervous. It’s not something he’s ashamed of; he’s never been, he never plans to be. But it’s Tom, and there’s something different about it being him, something different about admitting things. Tom just sighs, dropping his hands to press his face into Will’s shoulder. Will just holds him — He’s gotten his verdict already, in April — he’s not going anywhere.

“What do you celebrate, then?” Tom says, half-muffled into his shoulder.

“Hanukkah,” he says softly, and then Will ducks to press a kiss to Tom’s curls, because he can, because he felt like smiling.

“You’ll have to walk me through it, then,” Tom hums. 

Something in Will crumbles, or maybe melts. He feels stunned, and maybe Tom can feel it too, because he pulls back to grin at Will, and he says, “What, you thought you’d spend it this year without me?”

  
  


Will kisses him.

  
  
  
  
  


-

  
  


There are no candles to light that year, and with 1918 comes the end of the war and Hanukkah early — Tom leaves the week of the 20th, and by the 28th of November, Will is alone.

_But I’m here now,_ Will thinks, standing in front of Tom’s door. In front of _their_ door - because this is their home, because Will brought him home. Because it’s December, and Will feels awkward and stiff in his uniform, out of place, strapped in a kit, hair too short. He feels like a lost toy soldier in the snow.

_But I’m here now,_ he thinks, and he knocks on the door.

  
  


-

  
  


1919 is beautiful, because it comes with this:

  
  


Tom comes home from one of his walks with a tree, small enough to go on their kitchen table, but it’s perfect. He sticks paper decorations the kids from school made in the branches, and Will carefully takes out his aunt’s set of Christmas decorations Eleanor inherited when she died, covered in dust and made of glass. Will comes home with a Menorah, carefully handmade, and Tom furrows his eyebrows, softening. 

“I — I thought, maybe, this year, it could just be the two of us,” Will explains quietly. “I know you wanted to spend it with my family, but I thought— “

“No, no,” Tom rushes, lurching forward to take Will’s hands. “It’s perfect. I’d be honoured.” 

Will lets himself grin, and Tom kisses his forehead. 

  
  


A week later sees Will taking the day off of work - Tom heads off to school, and Will works on putting in the chicken for the matzo ball soup, makes sure he has enough time to make sufganiyot while it cooks, so he can tear the chicken for the soup into pieces after. He checks that Tom’s present is still hidden beneath one of their beds, right where he placed it after picking it up from Eleanor’s in the morning. He has jam for the doughnuts, the chicken looked fine when he checks it, Tom’s present is still there. 

When everything is finished, it’s almost four o’clock — Tom gets home at seven, but that’s when he walks, and Will had to be maybe extra persuasive that morning to make sure he actually went to work, so he isn’t worried. Will curls up in one of the dining room chairs, and waits.

  
  
  


Tom ends up bursting through the door, hair windswept, and shouts, “Merry Christmas!”

Will laughs. Tom grins, before it drops and his eyes widen. “Holy hell, what’s that smell?”

“I made soup,” Will hurriedly explains, standing to make his way over to the kitchen. “It’s — matzo ball. It’s got chicken and eggs in it.”

“Eggs?” Tom says, taking off his jacket and haphazardly chucking it at their coat hanger. He meets Will by the stove, peering into the pot. “They look like dumplings.”

“They do,” Will hums, before setting the lid back onto the pot, so it stays warm. He takes Tom’s hand, gently. “It’s almost sundown, now. Prayers first.”

“Fuck, right,” Tom breathes out, and he can already see where his shoulders are starting to tense.

“You don’t have to say anything at all,” Will quietly assures him. “I’ll be saying it in Hebrew, but — I can - I can write it down in English, too, if you want. But you don’t have to say anything at all, if you don’t want to.”

“I want to,” Tom affirms. “Though I can’t say I won’t fuck it up, but — writing it down’s a good idea.”

Will nods, squeezes his hand, once, before moving to find a scrap of paper and a pen. He writes the words down quick and careful, nodding Tom over to the dining table where the menorah sits, before setting the paper down next to it. He’d already dug for the box of candles they had bought, earlier, and they sit on the table next to it. He takes out two of them, placing one in the far left of the menorah, the other in the middle.

  
  


Tom frowns. “Just two?”

“Just for tonight,” Will says. “We add a candle, every time. Eventually, there’ll be all eight.”

“But there’s nine,” Tom points at the one in the middle, and Will just hums, opening the matchbox he set aside and pulling one out. 

“Are you ready?” He asks.

“Yeah, I’m — yeah.” Tom nods, eyes going wide and nervous. Will looks to the menorah, exhales, and the words come easy.

He likes Hebrew. He likes speaking it. Likes how the words don’t sound like they were twisted from his mouth, likes that it’s what he spoke first and read second. Likes the way Tom smiles at him, like he thinks it’s just as special.

When he finishes the prayer, he looks to Tom, nodding. He quickly looks to the paper. “Right, uh - blessed are you, lord our god, king of the universe — _fuck, —_ who has sanctified us with His commandments and commanded us to light the Hanukkah lights.”

“Perfect,” Will grins, and then he kisses him. Tom just laughs into his mouth.

“Didn’t feel like it,” Tom says, “but, is that - is that it?” 

“Not really. You only said the first prayer, but — I thought we could work our way up.”

“Well now I definitely feel like cheating,” Tom huffs out, frowning at the paper.

“I didn’t want to overwhelm you,” Will admits, moving away again to fiddle with the match, before carefully striking it. He lights the candle in the middle and blows out the match, before pausing, considering.

  
  


“Can I see your hand?” Will offers quietly, and Tom gives it to him. He gently guides their hands, together, to the candle before lifting it — and guiding it to light the one on the left.

  
  


“Oh,” Tom breathes.

  
  


They set the candle back down, and Will lets him go. The lights flicker in Tom’s eyes, and he has to pause, just to look at him — His eyes are warm, and soft, and amazed. The light makes his eyes glitter blue, and his hair sticks out from where Tom had smoothed it down, likes his curls are acting in defiance. He’s beautiful. 

_I want to spend the rest of my life with you,_ Will thinks.

  
  


Tom looks at him, then, before reaching up from where he’s sitting to Will, guiding him to his lips. He kisses him soft, like their home is a cathedral and somehow Will’s still the alter, always, no matter what their worship looks like, no matter what name lines its doors.

  
  


“Thank you,” Tom whispers.

  
  
  
  
  
  
Will smiles.


End file.
